Thursday, July 21, 2011

Bokeh

I learned a new word last night.

According to Wikipedia: bokeh (/ˈboʊkə/boh-kə,[1]Japanese: [boke]) is the blur,[2][3] or the aesthetic quality of the blur,[4][5][6] in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light."[7] Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lensdesigns to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting—"good" and "bad" bokeh, respectively.[2] Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Photographers sometimes deliberately use ashallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions.

Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it is often associated with such areas.[2] However, bokeh is not limited to highlights; blur occurs in all out-of-focus regions of the image.

It seems that I enjoy taking photos with bokeh. I will share a few of them with you today. Hopefully, you will agree that they are good examples (and not bad). Enjoy!